The civil society members said submitted in their plea that Maulana Aziz and his four gunmen had given life threats to peaceful protesters outside Lal Masjid on Thursday.

Copy of the FIR against Maulana Abdul Aziz provided to civil society representatives.

“The cleric and his gunmen asked us to end the protest or face consequences,” said civil society members in their application to the police.

The case was registered under Section-506 of the Pakistan Penal Code.

The copy of the FIR was also given to the civil society representatives who were gathered outside the police station.

A large number of civil society protesters gathered outside the Lal Masjid in protest against remarks of the mosque cleric who declined to condemn the barbaric Peshawar attack that claimed lives of over 130 children.

The head of a hardline Islamabad mosque Friday called an army offensive against the Taliban “un-Islamic” and said the militants’ massacre of 133 children was in retaliation for air strikes against them.

The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), claimed the assault as revenge for an ongoing military offensive against its strongholds in the tribal northwest.

Maulana Abdul Aziz told worshippers at the Red Mosque he “shared the grief” of the victims’ families but said the TTP’s response was understandable.

The Red Mosque, which stands a stone’s throw from the parliament buildings in the centre of the capital, was the scene in 2007 of a week-long military siege against radicals which left more than 100 people dead.

Twitter storm:

Since civil society began its protest against the hard-line cleric yesterday outside Lal Masjid, the hashtag #ArrestAbdulAziz has been trending top on Twitter with torrent of condemnations from people across the country on statement of the Maulana Aziz.